by Mark Snyder, USA TODAY Sports

by Mark Snyder, USA TODAY Sports

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Their minds were already made up late Wednesday night.

They are roommates and call each other brothers.

But for finality, Mitch McGary and Glenn Robinson III went to the place they felt most comfortable - the basketball court - for the final seal of approval.

The Michigan standouts announced Thursday that they would be returning to school for their sophomore seasons.

"The last couple nights we've been in the gym playing one-on-one just talking about it," McGary said Thursday at Crisler Center in a news conference announcing their return. "It's been helpful just having him being like a brother, having that second opinion and him having me doing the same thing."

McGary called it a second opinion but it was apparently just one opinion, though they are two different players.

They knew they held Michigan's basketball future in their collective hands, but the pull of being projected by draft analysts as top-15 picks made it a little tougher to make the final call.

Though they met separately with Michigan coaches Wednesday to go over the reports from the NBA undergraduate advisory board and the feedback, this was nearly a joint decision.

If Robinson had said he wanted to leave, McGary said he may not have stayed at Michigan.

"Probably not. I'd have to talk about it, but it'd just be weird," he said, adding he wants to be a kid for another year and was 50/50 on the decision until making up his mind. "Probably not. He's my brother pretty much. That's what we came here for. We wanted to play on the court together and try to win, so if he's coming back, I'm going to come back. If he's going, we'd have to talk about it, but the decision was we're kind of both in or both out."

It was a challenge for Robinson as well, trying to sift through various pieces of information.

His father, Glenn, went through a similar scenario when he left Purdue after his junior year, but he ended up as the No. 1 overall pick, so it was a bit of a different dynamic. They chatted a bit about it, but Robinson said his parents told him to make his own decision and they would support it, though they were happy with his return.

"You don't know what you're hearing is true and evaluating that whole process is a difficult thing, and I don't think people realize how stressful that can be on someone," said Robinson, who will investigate purchasing an insurance policy to protect against severe injury. "Especially when you've got all the tweets, all the people talking and everything like that. But I think we did a good job of staying away from all that and doing what we wanted to do and what the best decision for us was."

Their presence in the frontcourt takes the Wolverines - who have eight returning players - from a potential bubble team to probably a top 10 ranking next fall despite the departures of Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr.

There were a few uncertain days for the Michigan coaches as they waited and gave the freshman pair space to make their own call.

"I was ready to roll either way, knowing that I'd like this and this and this to happen, but if it doesn't, you just go," Michigan coach John Beilein said. "It's nice to know so we can plan and it really helps us we think as we know where they stand with the other NBA teams, what we can plan for in (2014) and (2015)."

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Snyder covers University of Michigan athletics for the Detroit Free-Press, a Gannett company.